Is cold fusion feasible? Or is it a fraud? (Synopsis)

“Between cold fusion and respectable science there is virtually no communication at all. …because the Cold-Fusioners see themselves as a community under siege, there is little internal criticism. Experiments and theories tend to be accepted at face value, for fear of providing even more fuel for external critics, if anyone outside the group was bothering to listen. In these circumstances, crackpots flourish, making matters worse for those who believe that there is serious science going on here.” –David Goodstein

The dream of free, unlimited, clean energy depends only on our ability to find a reaction that’s safe, efficient, with abundant reactants, that produces more energy than is required to activate the reaction. Our Sun is a prime example of this, as all it requires is hydrogen -- the most abundant element in the Universe -- and it produces, through nuclear fusion, an incredible amount of energy each and every second.

A fusion device based on magnetically confined plasma. Image credit: PPPL management, Princeton University, the Department of Energy, from the FIRE project at http://fire.pppl.gov/. A fusion device based on magnetically confined plasma. Image credit: PPPL management, Princeton University, the Department of Energy, from the FIRE project at http://fire.pppl.gov/.

But an even bigger dream would be to harness this type of fusion reaction here on Earth. While inertial confinement and magnetic confinement fusion, the two most common “hot fusion” scenarios on Earth, have yet to reach the fabled break-even point, there are claims that cold fusion, or Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR), has done exactly that. Should those claims be taken seriously?

Andrea Rossi and Sterling Allan, during a 2011 demonstration of the E-Cat. Image credit: Sterling D. Allan with Hank Mills of Pure Energy Systems News. Via http://pesn.com/2011/10/28/9501940_1_MW_E-Cat_Test_Successful/. Andrea Rossi and Sterling Allan, during a 2011 demonstration of the E-Cat. Image credit: Sterling D. Allan with Hank Mills of Pure Energy Systems News. Via http://pesn.com/2011/10/28/9501940_1_MW_E-Cat_Test_Successful/.

Perhaps. And if we want to do it right, here’s exactly the kind of scientific robustness we’d require in order to do so!

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“Between cold fusion and respectable science there is virtually no communication at all. …because the Cold-Fusioners see themselves as a community under siege, there is little internal criticism. Experiments and theories tend to be accepted at face value, for fear of providing even more fuel for…
"Between cold fusion and respectable science there is virtually no communication at all. ...because the Cold-Fusioners see themselves as a community under siege, there is little internal criticism. Experiments and theories tend to be accepted at face value, for fear of providing even more fuel for…
"Whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof." -Antonie van Leeuwenhoek We all have our biases, even if we ourselves are scientists. Yet if we want to make quality decisions about the…
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If we could reach that breakeven point [with standard fusion], it would be the ultimate energy breakthrough, as fusion power is clean, produces no radioactive waste, and the fuel for it is cheap, abundant, and virtually unlimited.

Well...assuming there aren't any engineering hiccups that falsify any of those statements. I'm reminded of solar panels: people characterize them similarly, but the production of solar panels itself produces all sorts of nasty hazardous waste. Don't be surprised if the building, operation, and decommissioning of a fusion reactor does the same thing.

Having said all that, it definitely holds out the prospect of being a better source of energy. Cleaner. Cheaper. Just (IMO) not as ideal as most people imagine.

Eric is right. High power density Cold fusion reactors have be shown to produce intense EMI that disrupt all electrical equipment many meters outside the reactor. Some sensitive people have suffered from acute neurological problems(memory loss, headaches, eye pain, red skin) as the electrical impulses in the nerves and brain have been interfered with.

It will soon become apparent that installing a LENR power unit inside the home or car will not be possible. The muon bubble emanating from a home LENR reactor will take down all the electronic equipment inside the home and this EMI interference will not be mitigated through EMI shielding. Many of the LENR faithful will be disappointed that their dreams of off the grid existence will be dashed.

Instead, the LENR reactor will be controlled by the electrical utilities who will build huge LENR reactors based of the principle of economies of scale. A 20 gigawatt LENR reactor will fulfill the dreams of the electric utilities. But what a reactor of that huge a size will do to the fabric of spacetime is yet to be seen. Like the old proverbial saying from mid 19th century states to keep excess under control: moderation in all things.

Rossi's edisonian dream of LENR light bulbs and becoming a epic industrialist through direct customer contact will give way to govenment regulation and slave like control by the electric utilities. How the fates are so unkind to the dreams of men. It is the price to be paid for the quest to unlimited power.

Remember that LENR is not recognized by the U.S. parent office and the only why to keep LENR IP protected is by keeping it secret. No LENR developer is going to give away a trillion dollar invention to advance science. And most people that are into LENR are in it for the money.

The article describes that maybe fusion can be achieved at low temperatures with special hydrogen where it's electron is replaced by a muon. Supposedly the resulting hydrogen is so much smaller that the nuclei can more easily fuse.

To me, a hydrogen ion (without electron or muon) seems to be even smaller, but probably the electromagnetic repulsion between the positively charged nuclei is so strong that it can only be overcome at extremely high temperatures or pressure.

So the LENR people must have very neat tricks to get around the repulsion problem at low temperatures. Adding a hidden extra power source to the LENR contraption seems to be a much easier solution to the problem.

While waiting for clean fusion technology, we could consider thorium fission instead of uranium fission. Rumor has it that it thorium fission is more efficient and produces much less hazardous and long lasting radioactive waste but it was never seriously researched because thorium could not be as easily used for warfare.

The ability of LENR to transmute even Z heavy elements more than odd Z heavy elements means that LENR can be used to enrich U235 from U238 and most importantly can remove U232 from U233. U233 without U232 is very dangerous. That means that thorium breeding is now very dangerous.

Chernobyl catastrophe should not have happened. Some factor outside of known nuclear engineering principles increased the reactivity of the core of the reactor. Electric discharge doing a test could have push the reactor into supercriticality.

arxiv.org/ftp/nucl-ex/papers/0304/0304024.pdf

On the possible physical mechanism of Chernobyl catastrophe and the unsoundness of official conclusion

A.A. Rukhadze,* L.I. Urutskojev,** D.V. Filippov**

* General Physics Institute, Russian Academy of Science
** RECOM, Russian Research Center «Kurchatov Institute»
e-mail: recom@hotmail.ru, shevchenko_e@mail.ru

The official conclusion about the origin and mechanism of the Chernobyl catastrophe is shown to essentially contradict experimental facts available from the accident. In the frame of existing physical models of nuclear fission reactor, it is shown analytically that under conditions of the accident the period of runaway of reactor at the fourth power generating unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) should be either 10 times slower or 100 times faster than that observed. A self-consistent hypothesis is suggested for the probable birth of magnetic charges, during the turbine generator test under it’s own momentum test, at the fourth power generating unit of CNPP, and for the impact of these charges on the reactivity coefficient.

EXPERIMENTS ON STUDYING THE MAGNETIC MONOPOLE

Apart from the neutron mechanism, other mechanisms of uranium fission are also known to exist, for example, fission induced by slow muons [24]. . The mechanism of uranium fission under the action of magnetic monopoles has been considered theoretically [25]. It was suggested [25] that the monopole-nuclear interaction is so strong that a monopole that comes close to a nucleus can induce 238U fission. To explain the experimentally observed facts, the formation of magnetic monopoles during a current interruption caused by electric discharge on a metallic foil in a fluid has been proposed as a working hypothesis [9]. In the authors’ opinion, this hypothesis provides an explanation for the abnormal tracks recorded using nuclear emulsions, for the observed nuclear transformation, and for the shift of 57Fe Mossbauer spectra. In order to confirm the hypothesized formation of monopoles, experiments on detection of the 238U fission induced by magnetic monopoles were carried out [26]. These experiments established that the original isotopic composition of uranium has changed towards 235U under the action of a “strange” radiation. The decrease in the specific activity of uranium upon the electric discharge on a metallic foil noted in [26] is, most likely, related to the transformation of uranium nuclei. However, the fact that the monopoles predicted previously [6, 7] are leptons suggests that they should influence markedly the β- decay. Substantial distortions of the β-decay periods for the isomeric 234mTh nuclei, which are daughter products of 238U, were detected in experiments [26]. Thus, the experiments provided crucial arguments in favor of the existence of magnetic monopoles and substantial support for the hypotheses stated previously [9]. Let us assume that magnetic monopoles have entered the RBMK reactor and find out what would be the consequences, relying on the results of [9, 26].

Surface of Earth is constantly bombarded by Muons created by Cosmic Rays. I think Cold Fusion maybe actually Muon-catalyzed fusion and the reason why labs around the World failed to replicate Fleischmann–Pons experiment maybe that they all done the experiment inside radiation shielding (to get "clean" measurements) which actually prevented Muons coming in.

The D(0) (metalized hydrogen) is a cluster of atoms that oftentimes number from under 100 to maybe in an exception as much as a thousand. Under the influence of Rydberg blockade provided by alkali catalysts (potassium, lithium) , the D(0) forms a Hole superconductor that has a core of positive charges in the core and a electron/boson spin wave of negative charges that cover the surface of the cluster. This surface is organized as a spin wave that is coherent and contains Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPP) as a component of the spin wave. The SPP is a bubble of many entangled electrons and photons that store energy in a whispering gallery wave format in the giga electron volt range. The photon/electron entangled pairs start out in the infrared energy range but as energy is added, the SPPs advance into the XUV and x-ray energy range. All the SPPs are entangled and share energy that form the spin wave. Any D(0) can store a vast amount of energy in the spin wave. The SPPs are analog monopoles who becomes easily entangled by their nature. The energy that is added to the spin wave Bose condensate is stored as a magnetic flux line cover that converts the D(0) into a analog monopole. The monopole trails of D(0) have been seen in photo emulsions where their energy has been calculated to get into the Giga electron volt range as determined by ionization trail calculations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRKblAn8lLI

This patterned magnetic field extends out and destabilizes protons and neutrons inside of nuclei that are near the D(0) and brings some of the nuclear energy into the spin wave via entanglement but most of the nucleon decay energy forms mesons that are entangled with the D(0) spin wave. As the meson decays into many other sub-atomic particles, they all remain energetically entangled with the D(0) that produced the meson(s) no matter how far away from the D(0) those decaying particles happens to be away from the decaying remnants of the nucleons. This process of entanglement with the D(0) is how the muon bubble forms.

The D(0) can be thought of as an extended wave of energy that can extend out many meters, with other nuclear reactions produced in superposition with the muon waves that are connected to the D(0) monopole magnetic quasiparticle. This magnetic spin wave cover makes the D(0) indestructible and no amount of heat and pressure can penetrate into the D(0) to disrupt it.

The D(0) keeps bring in energy until a limit is reached and this quasiparticle explodes into a Bosenova of XUV and x-ray light and magnetism where the stored energy is converted into a magnetic proton supercurrent. This proton supercurrent is the source of intense magnetic fields that have been seen in some LENR systems.

The factor that causes the proton and the neutron to decay is CP violation. Ordinarily, the proton and neutron are in their lowest energy color force state, but when a rotating magnetic field is applied, these nucleons become excited and the weak force becomes activated and can produce nucleon decay. The spin wave on the surface of the D(0) produces a properly formatted magnetic field that excites the nucleons.

In other types of LENR systems, crystal filters generate the properly formatted rotating magnetic fields.

Like the specific shape of a key opens a lock, if the stimulus for the LENR reaction within the nucleon is a specific moire patterning of a monopole magnetic field, that would explain why certain crystal configurations induce the LENR reaction.

See

Hexagonal Crystals and LENR (Axil Axil)

http://www.e-catworld.com/2016/01/16/hexagonal-crystals-and-lenr-axil-a…

Possibly, metalized hydrides produce the proper magnetic pattern without crystal based filtering, but other materials can produce the proper magnetic pattern through filtering of a monopole magnetic field through the appropriate crystal structure.

For example, Dennis Cravens Golden balls

http://www.infinite-energy.com/images/pdfs/NIWeekCravens.pdf

"To assure a strong magnetic field in the active material the spheres contain a ground samarium cobalt (Sm2Co7) magnet, which stays magnetized at higher temperatures. This was powdered and the powder is mostly random but it should provide a strong magnetic field within the sample"

The Sm2Co7 magnet produces the required anisotropic magnetic field lines(monopole like magnetic field).

Deuterium is used as the gas envelope

Activated charcoal produces the graphite like hexagonal crystal structure that formats the magnetic field to the proper specific moire patterning of a monopole magnetic field.

The basic chemical structure of activated carbon is closely approximated by the structure of pure graphite. The graphite crystal is composed of layers of fused hexagons held by weak van de Waals forces. The layers are held by carbon–carbon bonds.

It is the specific shape of the magnetic field that causes the nucleons (protons and neutrons) to decay when the applied patterned magnetic field produces CP violation in a resonant EMF based reaction.

Various other people use other hexagonal crystals to filter the magnetic fields. Rossi has used mica, and
Etiam Inc. has used quartz.

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/cf/246vysotskii.html

A sheet of mica near a radioactive source changes the gamma decay probability

It is important to note that Holmlid uses graphite as a catalyst component in the formation of D(0). Potassium (provides Rydberg blockade) and iron oxide (provides nanocavities) are also part of the catalyst.

Holmlid also mentions that it takes some time to charge up the D(0) before it is able to produce mesons. Also, the iron oxide catalyst will produce mesons for weeks after it has been used in and experiment because the D(0) spin wave has been charged up to a sufficient energy holding level to be self-sustaining as it sends muons out to gather in more entangled nuclear reaction energy from catalyzed fusion events.

@Frank #5

Muon shielding does the opposite from what you might expect. Shielding reduces muon energy through ionization and that eventually stops muon movement. These stopped muons will catalyze muon fusion 100% of the time. You might want muons to penetrate deeply into the ground where they will eventually produce muon based nuclear reactions.

Low energy muons produced in LENR are highly nuclear reactive.

Eric is right. High power density Cold fusion reactors have be shown to produce intense EMI...

Just to be clear, I wasn't talking about LENR. I was talking about traditional, regularly reproduced (though not for power), non-cranky fusion. That source of power may turn out to be not as clean and cheap as people think it will be.

@axil #3: "Most LENR people are in it for the money." Well, Charles Ponzi was in it for the money too. Just like him these people are proposing for people to invest in some scheme whose innards the prospective investors are unable to verify and examine closely with actual experts who know their stuff. Probably because if they did, it would expose them for the frauds they are.

If the USPTO won't accept the patents for their LENR devices, I imagine patent offices in other countries might not be so discerning. The Russian patent office appears to have issued patents for a biochemical method of transmuting chemical elements, and I doubt that they would reject patents for LENR devices. Thanks to international treaties on them these patents will need to be recognised elsewhere in the world too. The inventor you mentioned before isn't even an American as I recall, so why not file a patent in their local patent office and see what happens?

By Anonymous Coward (not verified) on 23 Sep 2016 #permalink

Well Muon catalyzed fusion is no mystery. The electron wave function is spread out, and you can calculate the charge density and hence the electric field/potential, and it is low enough to allow a few protons (or more likely a deuteride versus a Tritium nuclei to occasionally fuse. The kicker is muons take a lot of energy to create, and they don't last long enough to be used over and over again.

Of course cosmic rays will occasionally cause nuclear reactions in nuclei that they hit. But, that will never be a useful energy source.

I think some fusion experiments now under construction are projected to reach the so called breakeven point -more energy out than in. Thats still a very far cry from an economically viable power source however. I saw a projection claiming it would cost about the same as current Nukes. But wind and solar are now cheaper than newbuild nuclear, so it
seems unlikely that we will end up with a fusion powered future, rather than with a solar powered future.

By Omega Centauri (not verified) on 23 Sep 2016 #permalink

@Ethan: A very minor nit-pick, but one which fusion energy boosters often fall into. You wrote, "fusion power is clean [and] produces no radioactive waste..." That is not necessarily true for the kind of fusion we have to do on Earth: instead of the solar p-p reaction, which produces helium, neutrinos, and gamma rays (heat), we have to use deuterium-tritium.

D-T fusion produces helium, heat, plus one neutron. That neutron bounces around all of the hardware of whatever you're using as your fusion chamber, and eventually gets absorbed by some nucleus. That nucleus becomes radioactive. If we ever produce a nice, self-sustaining power-plant, it's going to end up brittle and radioactive within a "few" years.

The ITER project includes an entire sacrificial layer of lithium lining the fusion chamber. The idea is that lithium-6 (stable) absorbs slow neutrons, becoming Li-7, which is also stable. Some of the reactions with Li-6 will cause the nucleus to break up, releasing tritium and deuterium or tritium and an alpha (helium).

By Michael Kelsey (not verified) on 23 Sep 2016 #permalink

If it is possible to slow down natural Muon showers then it maybe possible to create some kind of lens to focus them to make them usable for free energy production using Muon-catalyzed fusion.

Thought we gave this topic a good hammering last time around.
✌️

Axil said:

The ability of LENR to transmute even Z heavy elements...

Okay, I'll bite. Why does LENR transmute even Z heavy elements better than odd ones? Does this have anything to do with your claim that these machines also produce or use magnetic monopoles? At the rate you're inventing new unexplained things to prop up the basic claim, next year LENR will be solving tooth decay.

PJ said:

Thought we gave this topic a good hammering last time around.</blockquote.

Evidently, the Senate might call a hearing on it. Though that is several steps away from the scientific world thinking it works. IIRC, one year Congress threw some creationism language in a committee report as a sop to their constituents. Nothing ever made it into law, so it was basically just a symbolic gesture. However, creationists annoyingly would quote from that report for years as if it meant something concrete. I envision the same thing happening here...

In condensed matter physics, the quasiparticle is an important tool. By configuring the appropriate topology, a dual of the fundamental particle can be constructed from an assembly of condensed matter subunits.

One example in which a monopole can be constructed is the Weyl quasiparticle, Another example important in LENR is the Surface Plasmon Polariton(SPP). The magnon is the magnetic version of the electrically based SPP. When properly configured using entangled electron/photon pairing constrained in a whispering gallery waveform soliton, a monopole quasiparticle can be produced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weyl_semimetal

The even Z elements usually have a zero nuclear spin, This enables the magnetic fields that produce LENR to enter the nucleus more easily. Non zero nuclear spin produces loss of energy based on active NMR processes where magnetic energy is converted to RF. A strong LENR field can override this nuclear active NMR configuration, however.

"LENR testimony before the Congress"

Uhm, reality isn't decided in a select committee of laymen, idiot.

"Thought we gave this topic a good hammering last time around."

We did, PJ, but axil needs some more suckers to pay into the scam. Never expect someone to understand a thing when there's money in not doing so.

"While waiting for clean fusion technology, we could consider thorium fission instead of uranium fission"

We've been doing that since the 60s, and we've not cracked it yet to a level that will allow it as anything more than a lab experiment. Commercially it would be a flat failure even if you ignored the danger in the system.

Is there any reliable evidence for H addition to nuclei with Z > 1 in LENR phenomena?

The problem is the LENR reaction is often inferred from measured excess heat in disputed calorimetric experiments or from the presence of elements which are heavier than the original (eg Pd>Ag or Ni>Cu) or are lighter elements asserted to be ‘fission’ fragments of the original. But impurity diffusion from the sample or from the apparatus environment at the high temperatures used, is more probable. For example in surface science experiments in ultra-high vacuum with highly pure single crystals (99.999%) of Ni, Pd, Pt, Au, to obtain clean surfaces it takes many cycles (sometimes days) of Ar sputtering and annealing to remove elements such as Si, Al, K, Ca, C, O, N, S which are trace impurities which preferentially segregate to the surface by diffusing from the bulk. These are just the elements observed after LENR experiments but whose presence is taken to be the result of nuclear transformations! Sometimes if a nuclear reaction was occurring radioactive products are expected; if these are not found the proposed reactions cannot be occurring. A prime example is Ni(59) (half life 10^4 years). This would be a major product of a H-Ni nuclear process because of the high natural abundance of Ni(58) (68.3%) and its high thermal neutron capture cross section (highest for all Ni isotopes except Ni(62)). No H-Ni reactor has ever detected Ni(59). It should be there if the reactions Ni(58) + p > Cu*(59)(half-life 82s)> Ni(59) + positron or Ni(58) + n > Ni(59) occur (here the > does not imply a direct two body interaction but can involve any many body mechanism you like). In the absence of Ni(59) we must conclude that the proposed nuclear transformations are not occurring in this system.

The only system where there seemed to be undisputable evidence for a nuclear process seemed to be Pd/D where the correlation of excess heat and 4He production was measured with the precision and accuracy needed to distinguish from background He interference (Melvin Miles). Mckubre’s confirmation of this result has recently been thrown into question by Krivit (see his comments on M4 experiment on newenergytimes.net). But the Miles experiment done double blind still looks solid to me. Apart from this do we have any crucial experiments which definitively establish the LENR phenomenon?

The definitive LENR experiment type.

anyone who want to understand LENR through experimentation is well served by doing laser irradiation of gold nanoparticles in a solution of a salt of a radioactive isotope as Andreev has done.

A comment on the The Andreev paper

https://docviewer.yandex.com/?url=ya-disk-public%3A%2F%2FEbmap0TnH1DTMj…

using laser ablation for quenching the radioactivity of Cs-137.

Using laser light conversion to a coherent magnetic field through the interaction of coherent laser photons and gold nanoparticles shows how the LENR reaction works.

The LENR reaction is mediated by an amplified weak force. The production of a coherent magnetic field through the use of laser light irradiating gold nanoparticles greatly strengthens the weak force.

LENR is a consequence of the amplified strength levels of the weak force that existed at the beginning of the cosmos where it reaches grand unification strength levels. At these immense levels of strength, protons and neutrons decay into strange matter mesons.

A.V. Simakin has also produced a full range of laser based irradiation of gold nanoparticle experiments that show accelerated weak force activity including stabilization of radioactive isotopes, fusion and fission.

see

scirate.com/search?q=au:Simakin_A+in:physics

I found another interesting experiment that G.A. Shafeev collaborated in that was not included in the list above

Laser-induced synthesis and decay of Tritium under exposure of solid targets in heavy water

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1306/1306.0830.pdf

Other systems using laser irradiation of various transition metal nanostructures show both the formation of tritium and its rapid decay as a simultaneous operation.

I like these laser based experiments that reveal in the most basic terms what is happening in the bare bones LENR reaction.

A comment on the following paper in Russian
A.I. Laptukhov
"The possible mechanism of the quenching of the radioactivity of the isotope Cs137

http://lenr.seplm.ru/articles/ai-laptukhov-vozmozhnyi-mekhanizm-tusheni…

Among other things, this paper remarks about the steady production of gamma radiation even when the rate of stabilization of the isotope CS137 is accelerated by some 1200 times the expected rate. The decay of Cs137 is an exothermic process; excess energy would be expected to be generated from the conversion of the unstable isotope to the stable daughter decay product.

Where does all that energy produced by the stabilization of the isotope go?

At the most basic level, I have always expected that LENR is a result of a single foundational mechanism, namely the accelerated action of the weak force under the catalytic effect of quantum coherence.

This decay process should always produce positive energy. But in this particular case, no excess energy appears, so the energy flow away from the reaction is not detected.

Holmlid faced this issue in the early stages of his experiments where there was an expectation of a large amount of energy production that did not become apparent. Holmlid finally detected the production of sub-atomic particles that formed a chain of decay from strange matter based mesons through kaons, pions, muons, and finally electrons.

Under the single cause of LENR posit, the same thing might be happening in this laser based experiment. Muons may be coming off the gold nanoparticles as a result of an energy storage mechanism inherent in the LENR reaction.

In more detail, this energy storage mechanism may be centered on the Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPP) produced by the laser photons as they interact with the surface of the gold nanoparticles. The gamma radiation coming off the decaying Cs137 isotope might be absorbed by the SPPs and stored until enough energy is accumulated to produce strange matter mesons that eventually decay to hard to detect muons that distribute the weak force based decay reaction energy to the far field.

This process of particle production from stored energy is called Hadronization

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadronization

An experimental method that might show this energy migration path is to detect muons using the Holmlid method or place the Cs137 salt solution with gold nanoparticles in a cloud chamber and look for charged particle tracks coming of the isotope solution as it is being irradiated with laser light.

The detection of muons would point to an amplified weak force reaction catalyzed through nanoplasmonic based laser induced coherence.

By the way, Holmlid is working on a small version of his experiment to be placed inside the particle detector of a proton collider. The purpose is to verify subatomic particle production coming out of his device.

By axil (not verified) on 17 Dec 2016 #permalink

In reply to by nick (not verified)

Unfortunately I do not read Russian so I cannot follow your first Andreev link. I am unfamiliar with the laser induced transformation experiments so I will look into them. Thank you for the references. However I wonder what relevance these have for the many claimed LENR processes where there is no laser stimulation . If the laser is initiating the effect it will not occur in the absence of this highly concentrated energy input.

Having read some of the laser studies I would say these are not low energy nuclear reactions. The typical Au nanoparticle is blasted by the laser (510nm i.e 2.43eV per photon) at a flux of 10^18 Watt/cm^2 (i.e 2.57 x 10^38 photons per cm^2 per sec) A nano particle is about 10^-7 cm diam so will be blasted by 8.1 x 10^24 photons per second. This blasts the nano particle into a hot plasma which can easily produce 20 keV gamma rays (requiring only 10^4 of our laser photons) which inturn can effect nuclear transitions in D and T nuclei.

@nick #24

To translate from Russian, I use "google translate".

Without nanoparticles, laser light alone does not produce any effects. I beleive that the LENR process is generated by coherence which amplifies the weak force.

Laser light and nanoparticles produce Surface Plasmon Polaritons which are coherent

http://www.phys.ens.fr/~castin/carusotto.pdf

Non-equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation phenomena in microcavity polariton systems

By Axil (not verified) on 19 Dec 2016 #permalink

In reply to by nick (not verified)

I read that the U232 alpha decays can be altered by laser illuminating Au nanoparticles at much lower intensity 10^11 W per cm^2. But that the effect of the nano particles plasmons is to enhance the local field to 10^16 W per cm^2 which in turn is proposed to alter the field inside the U232 atom so that the tunnel barrier for alphas is reduced. if this were true the alpha count rates should go up, but they are observed to go down! Might the alphas be capturing electrons from the Au particles and hence not being detected hence giving an apparent decrease in rate? Anyway the whole discussion depends on the presence of the laser light field, in its absence the decay rates are unchanged so the phenomenon is not relevant to LENR reactions: The nano particles alone are not sufficient to change the decay rates.

There are scores of "definitive LENR experiment types".

Whenever one fails, another definitive version is announced.

@nick #25

Think about the comparison. The stadium sized $3 billion national ignition facility produces 600 terawatts of power and only gets to 10% of the power needed to produce a fusion reaction.

These LENR experiments not only produce fusion using a desktop laser, they also produce tritium from deuterium and protium.

The LENR capability is involved with the nanoparticles. Without the nanoparticles, no reactions happen.

@nick #27

The nanoparticle and laser combination produces Surface plasmon polaritons (SPP). These quasiparticles are coherent and entangles the U232 atoms. The amplified weak force cases the U232 to stabilized. The energy released from that weak force reaction is transferred to the SPP via entangled superradiance so no alpha has enough energy to break out of the U232 nucleus since that energy has been sucked out of the nucleus by the SPP.

Like what happens in the Holmild case, that U232 decay energy is reformatted in meson production which decays into muons. Some secondary muon catalyzed fusion may occur as a side reaction. But that gamma energy is also sent to the SPP via entanglement which will produce more muons but no gammas as is usual with fusion.

Most of the energy produced in LENR results in muon production.

Nick, long story short:axil doesn't have a clue, it's all babble.

Max Plank: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

Wow, the only thing that will cure your way of thinking is the grave.

By Axil (not verified) on 19 Dec 2016 #permalink

In reply to by Wow (not verified)

@NICK #24

https://docviewer.yandex.com/?url=ya-disk-public%3A%2F%2FrdfLlVFj8mFags…

I used google translate from Russian to english via cut and paste.

Here is the text in English

A possible mechanism of "quenching" of the radioactive isotope Cs137
AI Laptuhov
On Peoples' Friendship University Seminar (Head NV Samsonenko) 24/11/2016 DF-SN PhD Andreev
(GPI) made a report, "The nonlinear quenching of Cs-137 radioactivity at a laser
ablation in the liquid. " The report about an interesting phenomenon: the disappearance of the nuclei from
Cs137 ability to spontaneously disintegrate. It summarizes the essence of the experience. Private well
a sealed volume (water containing gold nanoparticles with a size of R = 3-10 nm
concentration n ~ 1012 1 / cm3 and a quantity of a radioactive isotope Cs137)
treated with low-power laser beam. As reported in the report, in the process
treatment, the amount of the radioactive isotope Cs137 was relatively fast
decrease. After termination of the rapid decrease in laser isotope Cs137
ceased. It stressed that the observed decrease is not due process
decay Cs137Ba137 + e + , since in this case the intensity of the radiation
during operation of the laser would have to increase by 1200 times, and in fact it was maintained
approximately at the same level. It turns out that during the operation of the laser cores
Cs137 lost the ability to disintegrate or perhaps more accurately, the time of their lives
significantly increased. How to explain this? In the framework of modern ideas, the
apparently can not be. But it has, and therefore need correction of our ideas.
Below is a natural explanation for this interesting phenomenon in terms of the theory
non-point electron. It was established experimentally that the charge radius of the proton with
mass mp is Rp ~ h / (mpc) ~ 10-13 cm, where h- Planck's constant, electrodynamic c-
constant. It is natural to assume that the charge radius of the electron with mass me too
defined by a similar formula Re ~ h / (mec) ~ 10-10 cm, which is grounded in the work [1].
It is known that the electron can not be in the core of an atom (or at least just because he
large and small kernel). But the nucleus of an atom to the size of Rn may very well is inside
an electron to the size of the kernel Re >> Rn. At least no fundamental prohibitions on
it is not. With this in mind, it is natural to assume that under the influence of laser radiation and the
complex processes in nanoparticles of gold atom Cs137 disturbed stable equilibrium
state and as a result of a triple collision of two electrons with the nucleus of one of Cs137 electron transfers its kinetic energy to the second and can not fly away from the nucleus.
There is a reaction e + Cs137 + e (eCs137) + e, where (eCs137) is the electron to the size of ~
Re ~ h / (mec) ~ 10-10 cm in the center of which lies Cs137 nucleus with charge Ze = 55e. such a system
the particles will be called the electron-ion core, or briefly eyadrom [2]. The formation
eyadra (eCs137) should allocate energy ~ Ze2
/ Re ~ 100 keV (see. Also [2]) in the form of kinetic
electron energy, which is then transformed into x-ray observed in the experiment
continuous emission spectrum with a peak at ~ 100 keV. Eyadro (eCs137)
similarly kvazineytronu (ep), i.e. electron, which lies in the center of a proton.
Kvazineytron produced during triple collision e + p + e (ep) + e and, on belief
author, is the principal agent of low energy transformations atoms [2].
At the core of Cs137 electron emission occurs in a vacuum and possible. In eyadre (eCs137) Departure
Cs137 nucleus of an electron would occur not in a vacuum but within the scope of the surrounding
electron that is apparently difficult or even impossible. Therefore eyadro
(ECs137) stable, or more likely, has a substantially greater half-life than
conventional core Cs137. Let us explain why. In the experiment, in fact, it is not measured by the number
Cs137 particles in a closed volume, and the number of disintegrations per unit of time, at which
permanent life time proportional to the number of radioactive nuclei. But if some of the nuclei
Cs137 during laser processing enters a different state, with the other,
long lifetime, the average speed of their disintegration will be reduced, with
decrease rapidly at first, and then, upon completion of the transition to a new Cs137 nuclei
condition (eCs137) everything slower and slower. This is the nature of the rate of change
Cs137 nuclei decay was observed and analyzed in the experiment for 10 hours. Therefore, most
all new eyadro (eCs137) is not stable and decomposes under the scheme (eCs137) Ba137 +
e + e + c lifetime considerably greater than that of Cs137 nucleus which equals 30,167 years.
If an increase in the duration of laser irradiation the rate of decrease in the number
decays per unit time will decrease monotonically and tends to some
constant value, it means that a new state in the form of core (eCs137) (or in which either
some form of that, a priori, can not be excluded) it is not sustainable. This method of solutions
unusual problem? Yes, unusual. Unlikely? Maybe someone will seem even
incredible. But from the point of view of the theory of non-point of the electron is the solution to the problem
is a natural and consistent with the observed maximum continuous
X-ray spectrum at energies ~ 100 keV. And, most importantly, a different compelling
explanation of this method is very interesting experimental fact is not, and
therefore it has the right to exist until such time until a proposed
perfect way.
Literature
1. Laptuhov AI, Rukhadze AA Note on the characteristic size of the electron // Engineering
physics. 2015. №3. S. 19-23.
2. AI Laptuhov Electronic structure and electron-nuclear forces. Kvazineytron as one of the
the main agents of the low-energy transformations of atoms // Engineering Physics. №9.
2014 S. 09-16 ..

You're still better off ignoring it. Axil tried this SPP bollocks at another SWAB "Cold fusion? BS or bollocks?" thread. His error was explained there, but he just run off and pre-typed an even LONGER load of BS over it to copypasta into the discussion.

And every scam artist is looking for the next sucker. Waiting for the last lot of people scammed to die off isn't going to make your scam scientific.

Wow, if you're concern is centered on scientific scams, look into supersymmetry. They want to build a bigger particle collider for 10s of billions more to verify it. Or maybe tear into the ITER project. There is lots of scamming in LENR but it is just small potatoes, not the industrial scale scamming going on elsewhere in science. Clean up your own backyard first.

By Axil (not verified) on 19 Dec 2016 #permalink

In reply to by Wow (not verified)

No, my concern should be on the scam of cold fusion. Supersymmetry isn't trying to blag billions from investors with low information. Unlike the various LENR/ColdFusion scams.

More about Holmlid and his work toward a theory of LENR...

Another reason why Olafsson feels confident the research is real is the work of Leif Holmlid. Holmlid is professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Gothenburg and has a long career. He has both helped assess potential laureates for the Nobel Committee, and has published over 200 scientific papers. Unlike most Cold Fusion/LENR researchers, the work of both Olafsson and Holmlid very recently published their revolutionary work on Rdyberg Matter in the prestigious journals of the American Physical Society, with its 50,000 members it is the largest organization physicists in the world. There will be no more “mainstream” than that.

Holmlid would still rather not be called a Cold Fusion/LENR researcher or associated with the concept of cold fusion. (Perhaps he sat in on that course at MIT.) It is a tough title to dodge as last autumn he published startling results from his pursuit of a new energy source in one of the journals of the American Physical Society, AIP Advances.

Svein Olafsson characterizes Holmlid as follows, – Until now, cold fusion research groped blindly, because we have not had any credible theory about what’s going on. But with Holmlid work we have a path that we can start walking. I would not be surprised if Holmlid ends with getting the Nobel Prize for what he now found out, says Olafsson.

"More about Holmlid and his work toward a theory of LENR…"

A theory how it might work isn't proof it has worked. You're doing what Alien Abductor Theorists do: look for ways that your assertions are right, which is 180 degrees from what science does.

gosh what a lot of responses since my last post- thanks. But the point of my original question was not to think of a possible mechanism by which LENR might occur, but to find out if there is any solid, undisputed, experimental evidence that the claimed H + Nu(Z) > Nu(Z+1) reaction does occur in nature as claimed by the LENR advocates (i.e. without laser assistance at thermal temperatures T1 beyond reasonable doubt: is there any? If so Cite specific study please. (I know a lot of calorimetry experiments claim excess heat but the claims are all over the place. As the experiments get more careful, the size of the effect gets smaller and often vanishes. Eg For those with large excess heat claims for the H-Ni system none of them seem to do a proper job of analysing the obvious sources of systematic error in the experiment eg. the possible solid state reactions that can occur in the system; LiAlH4 is used to provide the hydrogen in air sealed ceramic tubes (so there is oxygen present) The obvious reaction LiAlH4 + 3/2 O2 > 1/2 Al2O3 + 1/2LiO2 + H20 (g) is massively exothermic 1343 kJ /mol yet few account for this source of heat in their analysis.

Am I correct in thinking that WOW and Axil are in agreement that the claims of the H-Ni (ecat) LENR reaction are nonsense?

I think I misunderstood WOW #28. you meant to criticize the LENR methodology right? I wanted to point out that there actually could be definitive experiments (the detection of Ni59, would be one) (the precise correlation of heat and He production another) and I suspect others which I haven't thought of, but I don't know if any such experiments have been made, apart from Miles' Pd/D2O experiments. The lack of Ni59 detection in H-Ni system seems definitive to me that the proposed reactions are not occurring. (The lucano e cat Ni isotope results of almost a pure Ni(62) sample seem to me proof that Rossi was committing fraud as perhaps the on going law suit will find.

Axil~#29

Yes but the desktop situation cannot produce a self sustaining reaction to produce energy - its like the muon catalyzed fusion, it may occur but requires more energy to effect than is produced. My understanding is that the laser experiments are interesting in that they may contribute to nuclear waste management schemes , but not energy production schemes.

"I think I misunderstood WOW #28. you meant to criticize the LENR methodology right?"

There is no "the LENR methodology", since they've had scores of them and dropped them (to be reborn when a new set of suckers come along) when it's not worked.

And everyone shilling their version of cold fusion insists on a mechanism different from that of other groups.

Hell, Rossi's even insisted that the contents of his ecat were definitely one thing then changed his mind when people pointed out that this is incompatible with the results seen. (e.g nickel isotopes and whether they were there all along or whether they were produced in the "reaction")

WoW #43 are you familiar with the Melvin Miles Pd/D2O excess heat /He4 correlation experiment which establishes the 2D> He reaction in that system even though it is occurring with very low probability? That seems to be the only case I have found which is established with careful enough experiment.

Not much, but it's not what the cold fusion is selling. They're selling a power source.

But hiding it and BSing it might works o that you'll keep playing. They'd flock to that explanation but it's not what they're doing, so they can't, because the "testbeds" they promote with high power output don't act like that explanation does. Same as SPP and Nickel/Pd or muon catalysed fusion.

So they keep clutching at new pseudo explanations and drop it if it falls too far to rescue, then leap to another one.

@Nick

You are asking for the engineering that drives the LENR reaction to produce heat. This is not available in full because it is proprietary and only contained in patents to a limited extent.

Most if not all LENR inventors got to where they are now by using trial and error development. They do not understand the science behind the LENR reaction, IMHO.

No, nick, it;s not available for the same reason that the patent formula for making people immortal is not available: they don't know or care what they're doing, just that you pay for it.

I have just found the papers of Iwamura et al and others who are using surface science techniques to avoid impurity contamination in the Pd/CaO/D2 system and are claiming to observe nuclear transformations in a number of elements see "Transmutation reaction induced by deuterium permeation through nanostructured multi-layer thin films. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical review Vol52. No4 Dec2015" and "Elemental analysis of Pd complexes: effects of D2 gas permeation Japn J.Appl.Phys. vol41 2002 p4642-4650." and proceedings of the 10th Int.Conf.on cold fusion 2003. At least these are published in peer reviewed journals and display results of careful experiments. If the interpretation of those results is correct then some very odd nuclear processes are occurring! (multiple additions of D as in 4D + Sr > Mo - sounds completely bonkers but the XPS and SIMS data seem to suggest this and careful control experiments do seem to have been done! I shall be reading these over xmas to see if I can spot any obvious flaws.

Uh, you can get nuclear transformations, but that doesn't constitute cold fusion power.

Okolo has it, but it's not a nuclear power station.

Heck devon basements have radon doing it. Not a power station, though.

PS, nick, this isn't what these various cold fusion claims have set up in their scam setups. You can see one example in pictures at the top of the page. Completely different from what you describe.

So you're saying the nuclear industry is a scam?

Fair enough.

So, we can take it that you're OK with millions of dollars scams, but not billions of dollars scams.

From some deep pathological hangup, you are fearful of any money spent on LENR, but don't really care if 10s of $billions are wasted on ITER and fast reactor development that have no chance of working. Even if these were all scams, just a sane sense of proportion should result in 99.999% of your efforts being focused toward the huge multi $billion money scientific scams and sinkholes. There is something strange your sense of proportion and in the way you think.

You have some hidden agenda that defies common sense.

By Axil (not verified) on 23 Dec 2016 #permalink

In reply to by Wow (not verified)

"From some deep pathological hangup, you are fearful of any money spent on LENR"

WRONG!

I'm against scams, axil.

Apparently you aren't, as long as they're cold fusion ones.

"but don’t really care if 10s of $billions are wasted on ITER and fast reactor development that have no chance of working"

But you brought it up. And complained.

Do you often complain about things you don't care about, bringing them up BECAUSE you don't care about them?

And you wonder why everyone here thinks you're a loon...

Pro tip for you: if you don't care about something, there's no bring it up yourself and complain about it. That's what SANE people do.

https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26753

2016 : WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER THE MOST INTERESTING RECENT [SCIENTIFIC] NEWS? WHAT MAKES IT IMPORTANT?

Carl Page
Serial Entrepreneur; Co-founder, eGroups

By Axil (not verified) on 23 Dec 2016 #permalink

In reply to by Wow (not verified)

Irrelevant.

We're currently trying to find out why you posted a complaint about something you brought up but don't care about.

No gish galloping, please.

Having read the Iwamura papers refered to at #48 I am convinced by the evidence presented there that nuclear transformations have been seen in the D2 gas perfusion experiments at 350K on Pd/CaO structures. The rates of these reactions are observed to be about 1% of the rate of the 2D>He reaction reported on Pd in electrochemical and in gas diffusion experiments. So this might be some form of alpha capture of these He products (since only even numbers of D are observed to be added: Cs133>Pr 141; Ba 138>Sm 150: Ba 137> Sm149; Sr88> Mo96). I agree with WOW that these reactions are going at such a low intensity that they cannot be used to generate power, but that they are occurring at all is astonishing!

It isn't "cold fusion", though. Any more than hamsters are thermal generators. Just put a motor on the wheel and POW! Free ENERGY!

The patent would most likely appear to be other than what axil claims. The patent appears to be a way to generate subatomic particles for experiments without needing a highly radioactive source, or an accelerator. And only in cases where you don't need much intensity.

A particle generator isn't a cold fusion device.

If axil et al want to conflate the two, then when next rossi comes out with a scam or axil supports his scam escapades,we can conflate the issue into a very low intensity particle generator, where the financial benefit is extremely limited. ESPECIALLY if they get their way and cold fusion claims (that don't require particle emitters, but DO require lots of money and time) are pushed to the front of the queue.

Nick @48:

I shall be reading these over xmas to see if I can spot any obvious flaws.

Well the first obvious flaw is that this research was done before 2003, yet it hasn't gone anywhere. The second obvious flaw is they're claiming nuclear reactions without any prompt gamma emissions. Given that they had a germanium detector to use for XPS, they seemed to have gone to an awful lot of trouble to *not* look for the most obvious and clearest signal of a true nuclear reaction. They've got a tool that would be able to detect single nuclear decays. Their results claim on the order of 10E10 nuclear reactions/cm^2/hour, which would be trivial to detect via prompt gamma means, but instead, they use their germanium detector to try and observe a change in the number of stable atoms at the femtogram level? Danger Will Robinson! Woo approaching!

eric#61 I think you have misread the paper! The gamma Ge detector was not used to observe changes in the stable isotopes. It had nothing to do with the XPS detector which is a separate bit of kit alongside the Ge detector. The Ge detector was there to detect any gamma emissions but none were detected in the Sr88.>Mo96 case even though they were looked for. But the Mo isotope ratios detected by SIMS were different from the natural abundance of Mo and close to those expected if the Mo resulted from nuclear reaction of the Sr as proposed. That the transformation only happened for D2 perfusion but not for H2 perfusion is additional evidence that the Mo signal is not from a chemical diffusion of impurity Mo from the bulk to the surface but is due to a nuclear transformation. That the measured rate for these reactions is compatible with the measured rate of the 2D>He reaction on Pd adds plausibility to the nuclear origin of the effects. (the product of that reaction then being captured). That these rates are so low (nanogrammes/cm2/week) clearly shows they would be useless for practical devices - which is why it has not gone anywhere since 2002, but the sensitivity of the techniques used are able to detect these rare events with confidence. Lots of questions remain - why do we only see 4D or 6D addition reactions? why are there no gamma emissions?, Data on alpha or Be8 capture crosssections and decay channels of mid mass nuclei is not widely available (it seems that it is only now being measured to allow modelling of p processes of nuclear synthesis in stars) so whether gammas in the energy range of the detector would accompany the reactions is unknown at present.

WoW #60 If the room temperature reaction 2D>He on Pd is not "cold fusion" I'm not sure what is. Admittedly this is a rare event (the measured rates indicating that only 1 D2 reacts this way for more than 10million D2 arriving in the Pd each second). So rare that it is useless for power generation: To generate a kWatt of power would require 1 kg of Pd and at present day prices of Pd (£17,700 per Kg) and of energy (£0.15 per kWatt hr) it would take me 15 years of continuous power output before I recoup the price of the Pd ! and that ignores the cost of the D2 or the labour costs etc.

"WoW #60 If the room temperature reaction 2D>He on Pd is not “cold fusion” "

OK, so rossi's claims are not cold fusion, then. He's claiming a power reactor, not a particle generator.

The Ge detector was there to detect any gamma emissions but none were detected in the Sr88.>Mo96 case

Yet you see no obvious flaws?

I'll admit I haven't done the mechanics, but I wager you haven't either. My suggestion is; do them. See if its even possible for this reaction to release all reaction energy as kinetic while obeying conservation of momentum. I"ll bet it isn't. Simply because in the vast majority of two-particle reactions it isn't possible and you're requiring even more particles to bang together simultaneously.

There's a very good reason almost all nuclear reactions give off gammas. You're banging positive particles together, which means the energy needed to get them close enough to react >> the momenta they will have when they finally touch. Since momentum is conserved, that means the energy produced can't be all contained in the momentum of the products, since the momentum of the products must equal the much lower value the reactants had when they touched. Its very hard to get around this problem. Which is why when Pons and Fleishmann first came out with their claims in, what, 1988, the very first question actual nuclear physicists and chemists asked was "where are the gammas?"

This problem with cold fusion claims is so glaring that cold fusion advocates have had to invent as-yet-never-seen physical properties and phenomena just to explain why they don't see gammas. When the far more reasonable explanation is that they don't see gammas because no reactions are occurring, and that their far less accurate measures of sub-picogram changes in masses or helium release are easily explained by the fact that they are attempting to make measurements at the edge of their equipment's accuracy and precision.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20070422222547data_trunc_sys.shtml

Chernobyl Fungus Feeds On Radiation

This fungus not only feeds on radiation, it can endure rad levels inside the reactor core of 2,000,000 rad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus

These were discovered in 1991 growing inside and around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.[1] Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine showed that three melanin-containing fungi — Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Wangiella dermatitidis, and Cryptococcus neoformans — increased in biomass and accumulated acetate faster in an environment in which the radiation level was 500 times higher than in the normal environment. Exposure of C. neoformans cells to these radiation levels rapidly (within 20–40 minutes of exposure) altered the chemical properties of its melanin, and increased melanin-mediated rates of electron transfer (measured as reduction of ferricyanide by NADH) three- to four-fold compared with unexposed cells.[2] Similar effects on melanin electron-transport capability were observed by the authors after exposure to non-ionizing radiation, suggesting that melanotic fungi might also be able to use light or heat radiation for growth.

The point is that chemical processes can convert gamma into other energy forms. Photosynthesis is another example how coherence in chemical systems can convert EMF into chemical energy.

http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v6/n6/abs/nphys1652.html

Quantum entanglement in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_biology

The bottom line is that COHERENT and ENTANGLED systems can transform EMF even as powerful as gamma radiation into other forms of energy as a mainline mode of operation.

By Axil (not verified) on 30 Dec 2016 #permalink

In reply to by eric (not verified)

I agree that in a purely 2 particle fusion reaction, gammas or some other particle (n,p e) are necessary for momentum conservation but not if the reaction is a genuine many body reaction with energy and momentum transfer to the lattice. (the problem then is how is this transfer possible?). Iwamura's SIMS and XPS data cannot be accounted for by inaccurate measurement , the surface science techniques used are not "attempting to make measurements at the edge of the equipment's accuracy and precision" . In fact they are routinely sensitive enough to accurately determine sub monolayer quantities i.e. picogrammes. That is why this experiment is so much better than all of the other data that I have seen. It establishes that there is a phenomena to be accounted for, so there must be a mechanism (as yet unknown) by which the reaction occurs without gamma production. Similarly the Melvin Miles experiments with He production in D2O/Pd experiments improved their sensitivity and control of background contamination so that Signal to noise was about 100. (I agree that in most of the published information from other experiments this sort of care is never taken so results from those experiments are always dubious).

At present it is not possible to "do the mechanics" . We would have to postulate a many body mechanism in which the input data of the nuclear energy levels of the reactants and products are needed and any resonances in the alpha or Be capture cross sections. This data simply does not exist for these mid mass range nuclei. - it is an active research field ( see p-process nucleosynthesis research ).

Untill I saw the Miles and Iwamura experimental results I would have agreed with you that "the more reasonable explanation that they don't see gammas is that no reactions are occurring" but the improved sensitivity and precision of these experiments establishes that a reaction is occurring without gammas- we just do not know the mechanism of this yet.

One experimental factor which may have contributed to the non detection of gamma in the iwamura experiment is the take off angle of the gamma ray detector. It appears from the paper that the sample was fixed a a glancing angle to the ge detector. (in order to face the XPS detector) It may be that any gamma rays produced will favour angles close to the surface normal (the Sr is adsorbed in a layer at the surface while fast fusion products (He or Be etc) are generated in the near surface so conservation of momentum would favour gamma emission from the Sr>Mo reactions near the surface normal.

One reason may be that the claim was wrong.

Occam

Yeah, right, Feeds on radiation. Uh, sunlight, yes. Gamma radiation, not so much.

'cept Hulk

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169895

Mesons from Laser-Induced Processes in Ultra-Dense Hydrogen H(0)

Leif Holmlid

Abstract

Large signals of charged light mesons are observed in the laser-induced particle flux from ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) layers. The mesons are formed in such layers on metal surfaces using < 200 mJ laser pulse-energy. The time variation of the signal to metal foil collectors and the magnetic deflection to a movable pin collector are now studied. Relativistic charged particles with velocity up to 500 MeV u-1 thus 0.75 c are observed. Characteristic decay time constants for meson decay are observed, for charged and neutral kaons and also for charged pions. Magnetic deflections agree with charged pions and kaons. Theoretical predictions of the decay chains from kaons to muons in the particle beam agree with the results. Muons are detected separately by standard scintillation detectors in laser-induced processes in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) as published previously. The muons formed do not decay appreciably within the flight distances used here. Most of the laser-ejected particle flux with MeV energy is not deflected by the magnetic fields and is thus neutral, either being neutral kaons or the ultra-dense HN(0) precursor clusters. Photons give only a minor part of the detected signals. PACS: 67.63.Gh, 14.40.-n, 79.20.Ds, 52.57.-z.

An article that is this controversial in PLOS, that's big. I hope this article will give the visibility that Holmlid's work deserves.

No, because the scam is still a fraud. All you have is yet another "proof" that it "could happen", but nobody, not even you, know if it does it that way.

After all, if you start saying HOW it happens again, you'll be told how it can't be, because it doesn't act the right way, so you'll merely have to find another reason again anyway.

Opening the entire thing up is 100% possible, though, but that is refused for spurious "we haz patents!" claims, but patents are protecting the invention, even in the US now that they changed the law about first-to-file. So we know it's a fraud because only a fraudster would refuse to let others look at the device to find out what's going on (because it would find out if anything IS going on).

An article that is this controversial in PLOS, that's big. I hope this article will give the visibility that Holmlid's work deserves.

PLoS One basically provides the opposite of "visibility" for a paper. Are you unacquainted with the business model?